CBF turns to Murphy's Synergy to be media rights sales adviser

Soccer - 10 Aug 2017

Author: Martin Ross

The CBF, Brazil’s soccer confederation, has hired Synergy Football, the Switzerland-based sports marketing agency set up by Patrick Murphy, to advise on its sale of broadcast rights to Brazil’s national team games.

Announcing the appointment, the CBF said that it would work alongside the new agency to organise an “open and transparent” bidding process for the rights covering the period from November 2017 until the 2022 Fifa World Cup in Qatar.

The agreement adds to Synergy’s existing work in South America as the exclusive sponsorship sales agent for the Copa Sudamericana, the continent's second-tier clubs competition.

Globo, the heavyweight commercial broadcaster, is the incumbent rights-holder for Brazil’s home qualifying matches, but the CBF experimented with a new approach in streaming coverage of recent friendlies against Argentina and Australia on social media platforms and via mobile operator Vivo.

Murphy was previously managing director, sales at Team, which markets the rights to the Uefa Champions League and Uefa Europa League. He left in 2012, and is now president of Catalyst Media Group, the Hong Kong-based company that markets the rights to the International Champions Cup, the pre-season exhibition tournament involving some of Europe's top clubs.

Marco Polo del Nero, the CBF president, said that the association’s board consulted with “many specialised agencies” and conducted an “exhaustive interview and negotiation process.”

The CBF opted for Synergy, he said, because of the experience of its personnel in selling Champions League and Europa League rights into the Brazilian market.

The independently-owned agency was set up by Murphy (initially as ‘Synergy Sports’) in Luzern, also the home of Team’s headquarters.

The CBF ensured the broadcast production of the June friendlies against Argentina and Australia.

The games were streamed on the internet on UOL and Facebook, and shown by Vivo, along with TV Brasil, a government-owned station, and TV Cultura, another free-to-air station.

Ahead of the games, Globo, the CBF’s long-standing partner, sent out a statement saying: “The CBF has plans to negotiate the rights to friendly matches and the 2022 World Cup qualifiers in the form of a closed auction. Recently it decided to sell rights to two friendly games in a separate way and, although we do not believe that this is the best solution for all parties, we have tried to negotiate, but have not reached any agreement.”